Syndicate: Bulgarian Radio Culture in Legislative Limbo Land

[Micz Flor <micz@yourserver.co.uk>]

BULGARIAN RADIO CULTURE IN LEGISLATIVE LIMBO LAND

Interview with Iassen Boyadjiev (Radio Darik and Chairman of the Free 
Speech Society)

Iassen Boyadjiev has been working with Radio Darik in Sofia, Bulgaria 
since he got fired by Bulgarians national radio network in early 1996, 
due to criticising on-air the extent to which the state is exercising 
power over the journalists. Shortly afterwards he co-founded the Civic 
Forum 'Free Speech' of which he is chairman. In this interview we will 
learn about the short history of the Bulgarian radio landscape since 
1989, joint ventures of independent networking with Belgrade in 
1997/97 and the current development of licensing and telecommunication 
legislation. The interview was conducted on the 12th October 1998 at 
the ICA Sofia by Micz Flor for the November issue of Crash Media (URL 
below). An edited audio version will go on-air in November at 
convex tv. (URL below).

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Crash Media: Since the decline of Socialism a lot has been happening 
in Bulgaria concerning private and independent radio culture. Is this 
a culture where pirate radio and private enterprises are soul mates?

Iassen Boyadjiev: Until today, based on the precise understanding of 
pirate radio, there has only been one example in Bulgaria. That was 
around 7 years ago, when Sofia based broadcasting station Radio 99 - 
which is still in existence - went on-air from their apartment. But 
this pirate broadcast was closed down literally after 48 hours by the 
authorities. However, at that time already several teams were well 
equipped and ready to start private broadcasts.

And in 1991 a group of Bulgarians entered an agreement with Voice of 
America Europe and managed to borrow money from other American 
organisations. They started re-transmitting the broadcasts of VOA 
Europe. Later this got legalised by the Vice Premiere Dimitar Ludzhev, 
despite the fact that there existed no legislation concerning 
broadcasting in Bulgaria. It was merely a decision on his part.

At the end of 1992 the first licensed private radio stations started 
broadcasting - the first one was FM Plus followed in January 1993 by 
Darik Radio where I am working today.

The strange thing is that even today, from a legislative point of 
view, all the private stations are broadcasting illegally. No law 
regulating broadcasting has yet been passed. This is due to the recent 
history of this country where many things after 1989 started happening 
because of provisional regulations. At one point there has been a 
temporary commission which was authorised to distribute frequencies. 
It was a body composed of representatives of the parliament as well as 
members of the committee of telecommunications. This *provisional* 
temporary commission followed some *provisional* temporary rules. A 
lot of members of this commission became very rich in a very short 
period of time due to this provisional arrangement - but I can not 
actually prove it.

CM: A few years ago you helped establishing a link with radio Index in 
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, at a time when in both countries a series of 
uprisings and changes were underway.

I.B.: If I am not mistaken this exchange took place either in the very 
end of 1996 or the beginning of 1997. At that time the street 
demonstration of students and other people in Belgrade had already 
been going on for some time, and the street demonstrations here were 
just starting. Here they eventually lead to the fall of the government 
formed by the former communist party. At that time all of us had 
colleagues and friends and even a correspondent in Belgrade and so we 
got the idea to enter a joined broadcast.

Initially we were aiming to establish the exchange with B92, but due 
to some technical difficulties we could not realise it. Eventually we 
worked with the radio station Index. In their Belgrade studio several 
leaders of the protesting students were present and in our studio in 
Sofia we hosted a number of Bulgarian students. The discussion between 
the Serbian students in Belgrade and the Bulgarian students in Sofia 
was realised using the simplest possible technology, meaning telephone 
lines. We even broadcasted songs coming through the telephone lines. 
Of course the quality was not very that good but both sides were able 
to catch the message. The songs from Belgrade were the songs of Goran 
Bregovic, and from Sofia our protest songs came through the phone 
lines.

Interestingly the students here in Sofia were different from the ones 
involved in the activities at the end of 1989, they were beginners. So 
there was a lot of enthusiasm, they were learning from the Belgrade 
students and really appreciated what happened there and the ways in 
which they organised their activities.

And about three months later we established another link. At this 
point the Bulgarian side was giving advice to the Belgrade students 
how to achieve real results. The they were not getting anywhere 
whereas here we could see concrete results and a real change of the 
situation. 

CM: So who owns the Bulgarian air-waves at this moment?

I.B.: According to the constitution the air-waves are exclusively 
within the authority of the state. For some time, a law had been 
passed concerning licenses including radio frequencies. The law was 
composed in such a way that for many years nobody got a license for 
anything. So all the private radio stations which were already working 
on the base of temporary licenses, they would firstly renew them and 
later kept on working without licenses. Since there is still no 
legislation, today they are practically legal pirate radios.

But not only the first private radio stations are still working in 
this way. Also newer radio stations appearing all over this country 
fall into the same set of regulations. The station I am currently 
working for, Darik Radio, started operating in January 1993 and since 
then has opened 13 stations in other cities all over Bulgaria, 
connected in a network. Each of these local stations produces three 
hours in the morning another three in the afternoon in their studios, 
whereas the rest of the time they are transmitting the broadcast from 
Sofia. Most of these stations were started sort of illegally with a 
permission from local authorities. Many radio stations in Bulgaria 
came into existence that way. And today bigger cities have up to 8 
private radio stations.

CM: But those temporary gentlemen's agreements will change in the near 
future?

I.B.: A legislation is currently being discussed and will probably be 
passed in the near future: the law concerning radio, television and 
telecommunications. According to this legislation the already existing 
stations will be given licenses and the new ones will need to apply 
and eventually be given licenses. The big debate which is currently 
going on in this country is the question of who will have the 
authority to issue those licenses. The 'Free Speech' society and I as 
the chairman are thoroughly following this debate. So far there has 
been the suggestion by the government that licenses are issued by a 
commission appointed by the 'Minsterski Suvet' (Council of Ministers), 
which means that licenses will be issued by the executive powers. What 
we and many others are fighting for is an independent body which will 
have the authority to issue such licenses. We believe - and reality 
proves us right - that for the period of time until licenses will 
eventually be issued by the authorities, independent radio stations 
become dependent on the executive branch of power and will be in a 
position where they have to accept many limitations from that body.

CM: How did the Civic Forum 'Free Speech' come into existence and 
where do you see its main function?

I.B.: The 'Free Speech' society was founded in the beginning of 1996, 
when a number of journalists got fired from the national radio 
broadcasting station after speaking out on the control of the state 
over journalists at the national radio station. And as a result 
approximately 150 individuals got together in January 1996 in the 
lecture hall of the Sofia State University and formed this 
organisation. The 'Free Speech' society includes not only journalists 
but also people from other professions.

One of our main objectives is the state of independence of media, 
identifying attacks on this independence, cases of censorship and so 
on. Since we are journalists, we know how to operate in the public 
media space, we know how to make our voices heard. So far we were able 
to make a number of suggestions and also produced our own version of 
the legislation concerning radio, media and telecommunication. We have 
reached a point where even the constitutional court is inviting us to 
assist on several cases concerning media legislation. Additionally, we 
are publishing a magazine called 'Chetvurta Vlast', the Fourth Power - 
after the executive, legislative and jurisdictional powers.

CM: Is your aim to play a role in the decision making process on who 
does and who does not get a license for radio broadcasting?

I.B.: We do not want to decide over who does and who does not get a 
radio license. In Bulgaria we would like to see an independent body in 
this function, similar to the constitutional court or the executive 
board of the National Bank. In theory and practice this body needs to 
be unaffected by the changes of the political status quo and 
elections. The system we see today on the Balkans - the ongoing 
changes, and not to forget our own political tradition - makes this 
absolutely necessary. At the moment it is easy to see who would and 
who would not get a license with every successive government.

CM: Do you see the danger of centralisation from within Bulgaria and 
do you know of international interests to buy into the media landscape 
of Bulgaria?

I.B.: We are so far away from such a situation that in the new 
legislation which is being debated the question of transparency of 
property and ownership of specific media or any limitations on the 
concentration of media ownership are not even mentioned.

There are rumours circulating about American interests. The rumour has 
it that the Central European Media Enterprises, an American company 
which also runs Televiza NOVA in Prague has submitted an application 
for a national TV channel here in Bulgaria. But those are only rumours 
at the moment.

--
Thanks to Luchezar Boyadjiev for interpreting.
Civic Forum "Free Speech": slovo96@hotmail.com
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Crash Media : http://www.yourserver.co.uk/crashmedia
convex tv.  : http://www.art-bag.net/convextv
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Micz Flor [micz@yourserver.co.uk]

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